CH10 - The dead world outside

[Lyon's POV]

Silence returned to our group after we had our fill of bread for breakfast, right now, we were taking stock of the new supplies we have as a collective since we haven't had any actual time to do so in the past. I initially brought with me 9 bottles of water and enough food to last three people three days but it was supplemented by additional snacks after looting the canteen. In total, I had about 5-7 days' worth of food and 2 days' worth of water for four people in my bag alone, that's only if you consider 5 protein or chocolate bars alone as a legitimate meal, which I certainly don't but hey, its the apocalypse.

Ren's bag initially didn't have a lot of supplies in the form of food or water as rather than that, what he carried were items that were meant for practical use like the lock cutters we had taken from the maintenance room which he held in his arms as well as his and Chisato's laptop alongside their chargers which were placed inside the bag instead. I also had a toolbox taken from the maintenance room, which he offered to carry himself but I had other plans for his bag. He admittedly, had the lightest bag out of all four of us even though he's become the pack mule of our group but I'll be sure to change that after I stuff his bag with whatever loot we could get from the other club rooms in the same floor.

Chisato's bag, in turn, initially only had a few crackers and a 3/4ths filled tumbler of water which should be just enough for one person a day, two if they drink it as conservatively as possible. This meager amount had already been supplemented with a bag of water which had only 16 water bottles left and a bag of 5 and 1/4ths of loaves of bread after we've had breakfast. Her bag alone carried 4 days' worth of water and about 7-8 days' worth of food.

Lastly, Alyssa's bag initially had her laptop, chargers meant for her phone and laptop and the same amount of supplies as Chisato did, minus the crackers but our trip to the canteen managed to add to her nonexistent pool of supplies around 5 days' worth of water for four people. She felt a little embarrassed after seeing how little she carried for the group so she offered to take the toolbox or the bag of supplies I had in my bag since she didn't want to seem useless or spoiled.

This worry of hers was quickly dispelled after I jokingly pointed at Ren and showed her what an actual useless/spoiled person looked like. This action of mine manages to alleviate her worries and replace her previously worried expression with a smile of gratitude, Ren, in turn, just sighs to himself, lamenting over how exactly he suddenly became the butt of jokes for the group as Chisato jokingly comforts him with a pat on his back over his "uselessness".

'All in all, we have about 11-13 days' worth of food and 11 days' worth of water for four people if we eat and drink conservatively, we would've had more pastries and water but the bag that carried 10 bottles of water and a bunch of random pastries was with Mr. Yasuda and there is no way in hell are we going back there just for more bread.' I think to myself while my three other companions just stare at me as if they were children waiting to know whether or not they had done well or failed the quiz that I was grading.

As per tradition, it is Alyssa, again, who breaks me out of my stupor but instead of the usual sleeve pulling she always did before. It seems my cheeks were a far more attractive choice of squeezing/pulling for Alyssa now as she stretches it enough to wake me from my thoughts. This action of hers prompts me to raise my eyebrows in surprise over how open she has become, this expression of mine is quickly replaced with amusement once I returned the favor to her by smoothly caressing her cheeks, causing her to back away in embarrassment before facing behind her in an attempt to hide her face.

"Ok, that's enough of that for now. Let's start talking about what we're going to do for now. As I've mentioned previously, I think we should loot the other club's storage rooms on this floor before going down the first floor to get to the southern exit and reach the abandoned southern building" I tell them while picturing in my mind the building's first and second-floor layout.

"The baseball, tennis, basketball, and volleyball meeting and storage compartments are found on this floor so there should at least be some protective and combat gear we could scavenge from the various clubrooms. The doors themselves shouldn't be locked but even if they were, we could just go to the teacher's lounge on this floor and find the keys there." I continue explaining to them while glancing at the empty basketball and volleyball courts outside.

"We should be done looting the rooms by the afternoon if we choose to loot all of them though I recommend just choosing one or two at most so we'd be done by lunch, we can rest as we eat lunch but we should start heading to the southern building once we're done looting, we should be able to pass by the nurse's office along the eastern hallway on the first floor which means medical supplies... and more weight for Ren's bag of course." I inform them, earning a sigh from Ren after hearing the last portion of my explanation.

"Chisato, can you take out 4 sets of bogu (Kendo armor) from the cabinets and try to show Ren the shinais (Kendo wooden sword)? I might wear the gloves, the body armor for protection, and the hip portion, wearing the helmet would protect my head, neck, and shoulder too but it would hamper my eyesight a bit, and it feels stuffy." I tell Chisato who nods to me before heading to the sliding cabinets.

"Ren, before you go with Chisato, go to the cabinet placed beside the benches, it should have stuff meant for maintaining and cleaning the armor, get a few bottles of cleaning spray and rags from the cabinet. I don't think cleaning it matters anymore in the apocalypse but we might as well take some." I tell Ren who nods to my words before going to the cabinet I had mentioned earlier.

"Alyssa, you should take a shinai too so you won't need to borrow my bokken anymore. You can pair the shinai with the knife I gave you earlier, though it's up to you on how you want to protect yourself." Like Chisato, she nods as well as she heads to the stands where the shinais were kept only to then stop all of a sudden as she glances back at me while sporting a serious expression.

"I will protect you too." Alyssa whispers before continuing on her way to the shinai stands. Her words leave a smile on my face as I glance at the windows while looking down below where a few unmoving corpses remain while many stand somewhat upright as they wander without direction, looking and waiting for their next meal to make a noise loud enough to call them.

'You already have, Alyssa, more times than you will ever know. Much of my memories of the early days of the infection have become somewhat hazy, I'm not exactly surprised though since 2 years had already passed before we even died' I think to myself while looking past the metal fence walls that separate the street from the inside of the campus itself.

Rising smoke could be seen coming from multiple buildings, the fire spreading freely as there were no firemen to put them out anymore. The fire will inevitably spread and stop by itself as it loses anything to latch onto, leaving a black scar on the land which remained for more than 2 years. Ren's apartment was northwest of here which meant we would go north after leaving through the southwestern exit.

I had seen silhouettes of helicopters flying off to the distance, their objective remaining unknown to me as I did not remember there being any rescue missions done for the people inside the city. The military, before going silent, had come to a conclusion that the sudden appearance of this virus and its ability to spread quickly warranted abandoning the people inside entirely. The government and the military chain died early on in the virus, prompting anarchy to spread, leaving what remained of the military to either scatter or form groups themselves.

I return my thoughts to the view in front of me, the general direction of my house was right there, though I can see it from here, reaching it safely as a human seemed unlikely if it were anyone else. Though my memories are hazy, there is one thing that I am quite certain of, the roads in the urban areas like where we are right now are unusable due to the abandoned cars left on the streets, the same could not be said for the roads around the residential area though as they remained somewhat usable at least.

The car-riddled streets around the campus were one of the reasons that the thought of bringing a car with me here never came to mind. There would be no way for me to leave the school without pushing aside the abandoned cars to make enough space for the SUV but the noise of the engine alone would attract too many to my location. Back when I was a ruin scavenger in the original timeline, the city could be thought of as if it was a circle with three different layers, each layer having a different safety level and amount of supplies left to be scavenged.

The outermost layer referred to the exits, roads, and makeshift bridges leading out of the city was initially very dangerous for the first year since the infrastructure was blocked with cars of people trying to escape from the city, this meant that all those who failed also filled the streets as mindless zombies. They would eventually scatter or form huge hordes that traveled randomly around the countryside for burgeoning settlements. This zombie exodus eventually made the outermost layer of the circle/city to be safe once more after the roads were cleared of abandoned cars.

The second layer which was generally where the residential areas were to be found, was a lot safer than the innermost and outermost layers. The roads were left usable even without having to need to move any cars since most of the people who were still alive, drove to the outermost layer and either escaped or died there. This meant that aside from the zombies who were stuck inside the houses, very few zombies would be found wandering the streets as long as a scavenger team doesn't make too much noise and stay for too long.

The innermost layer, which was the urban area and where we were currently, remained a hot zone for zombie activity even after two years of the apocalypse. Just that fact alone scared away most scavenger teams that weren't desperate for things to barter in the markets from going here. This, in turn, created a high demand for the supplies that could be found in the big malls and stores inside the urban area like high-quality liquor since most of the liquor in the second and third layers had already been drained dry.

Getting from here to Ren's house would probably be the hardest part of our plan, rivalling it in difficulty would be how we escape from the outermost layer. The outermost layer was separated from the residential and innermost layer by a river and connected via two bridges, one in the north and one in the south. Both of which were blown up just a day after the beginning of the apocalypse as the defense of the bridges most likely failed due to anarchy, forcing those inside the city to find other ways to get out.

We can use the inflatable kayaks that my mother bought a year ago in one of her random bouts of trying to find something to interest her, she only bought two since the type of kayak she bought was the kind that could carry two people and whatever they bring with them. One kayak could carry 550 pounds which meant that it was more than enough for all four of us to escape with after we divide ourselves into pairs, each pair having their kayak.

If that fails then we could use my contingency plan which involved strapping two plastic swans to the top of a car and using them to cross the river. The current isn't strong enough to greatly hamper both plans, but we should expect to slightly dock a bit further downstream than where we initially began. Getting the swans would be dangerous since that involved going to the national park inside the city but getting out of this city is a must if we don't want to become a zombie's next meal.

'The plastic swans can be taken from Midori no Utsukushisa National park which was located in the southern portion of the residential area which meant it was close to the river and perfectly coincided with the general direction of Alyssa's house' I think to myself, still staring at the window before breaking my gaze away and glancing at my companions.

"Ok, we should start talking about where we're heading first. The floor we are currently residing on is the same floor that houses the basketball, volleyball, baseball, and tennis club's meeting and storage rooms as well as a teacher's lounge. If we turn left after going out then we should pass the stairway we came from and reach the baseball club's rooms first with the tennis club's being slightly farther into the hallway but if we turn right then we'd reach the teacher's lounge first then the basketball club's room and the volleyball club's room afterward." I explain to them as all three listen to me, Alyssa and Chisato were already familiar with the building but Ren wasn't since he didn't join any clubs.

"I doubt there's going to be a lot of gear to take from the basketball club's rooms so I'd rather not waste my time going there. The baseball club should have a few wooden or maybe even metal bats as well as leg guards that can protect a large portion of our lower legs. They also have less stuffy helmets so I might go for that." I tell them as I sat down on the floor and tie the himo (strings) of the Tare (Hip and groin protector) into a knot behind me before bringing the string back in front as I tie it into a simple bow behind the portion that protected the wearer's groin and tucking the string under the thigh protectors.

"The teacher's lounge might also have some good supplies though we can't be too sure. There might be a few zombies in there with car keys inside their purses or backpacks but even if we were to find any, I doubt we'd be able to drive out of this mess with the streets clogged up with cars. If the club room doors are locked, which I doubt is the case, going there is a must since that's where the keys are kept." I continue spouting as I position the Doh (Body armor) atop the hip protector and start tying the lower string of the armor behind me while the upper string rose behind my shoulder before being tied into the designated hole at the upper portions of the Doh. This was a lot harder for beginners so Chisato had to help Ren out first before she did her own.

"The volleyball club should have similar protective gear to the baseball club, if not less so I don't think we should go there too. The tennis club has less gear to offer though I am pretty sure they have elbow guards that reach slightly further up the arm so going there wouldn't be a big waste of time." I suggest to them as I wear my right kote (Kendo gloves) before moving on to the left, securing it by further pushing it up as much as possible. Some kote had strings meant to tie them in place but ours didn't which meant it protected the underside of the forearm area is covered.

"I think the best route for this is we check out the teacher's lounge first which is the closest room to us. We then go to the baseball club's room and loot whatever gear we think we need from there and move on to the tennis club's room for protective gear since I doubt a tennis racquet is going to be a viable weapon in this case. If you guys have any complaints then tell me now so we can change our plan." I ask them, waiting for any new suggestions as they mull over the information I had just given to them.

"Well, if everything you said is right then yeah, the route you gave would probably be the best one, for me at least, not sure about the others though." Chisato replies, prompting me to glance at Ren and Alyssa who both nodded in affirmation to Chisato's words. With everyone in agreement I stood up and head to the backpack I had discarded earlier and secured it on my back, the others quickly following suit.

"The zombies inside the building should've begun moving by now as well. We were lucky back at the northern building since the canteen doors that led to the hallways were still whole, stopping them from going inside. We have no idea whether or not the small canteen's doors in this building were able to weather through so there might be more zombies wandering inside the building now." I tell them as I and Ren start quietly moving the benches we had placed in front of the door as barricades to the side with Alyssa and Chisato helping out as well as soon as they noticed what we were doing.

It took us roughly 20 minutes before we managed to move away from all of the benches that barricaded the door. Standing in front of the door, I swipe my fingers across the screen of my phone and learn that it was already 8:23 AM and that my phone's only had 61% remaining. There were still no notifications that informed me of any calls or messages coming from my parents but my message which informed them of my well-being had been marked as seen at least.

The shinais were too long to be kept inside bags so we only took with us the two shinais that Ren and Alyssa now used, both I and Chisato chose to not replace our bokken with the club's shinais since we were already familiar with its usage and it had better quality when compared to what Ren and Alyssa were using. All in all, we managed to get quite a bit of gear from scavenging this room but with everything else inside the room being considered unessential, it was time for us to leave and go back out to the dead world outside.